On Pencils

We’ve been all using them wrong.

Pencil |ˈpɛnsəl| is a writing implement or art medium constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing which prevents the core from being broken or leaving marks on the user’s hand during use.

Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving behind a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface. They are distinct from pens, which instead disperse a trail of liquid or gel ink that stains the light color of the paper.[1]

All sorts of people, from little children to the most admirable architects around the world, use pencils on a daily basis. There have to be few tools that enjoy as much adoption as the pencil. Also, they aren’t novel at all. There are several usage records of early forms of pencils from the 16th century. However, it was until 1858 that a man named Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil, making the pencil an evermore useful tool.

During our kindergarten years, our teachers encouraged (or even commanded) us to use pencils instead of pens to write and draw. You certainly know the reason: pencil strokes are erasable while those marked by pens aren’t.

The problem is that those same teachers made us believe that pencils are for people that make mistakes and that making mistakes is bad. This absurd belief that making mistakes is wrong incentivizes the rush to use pens, those permanent little tools that supposedly show our maturity through lack of experimentation and mishaps.

I wonder if this is why most pencils have such short erasers compared to their writing counterpart. What if the most prevalent writing and drawing tool of modern times went through a slight redesign? What if we thought of pencils as erasers with graphite tips as an accessory? Can you imagine what would happen if pencils had larger erasers and considerably shorter tips? Would we all become better writers, thinkers and designers if our main tools had imperfection and heuristics baked in?

I argue that the creative process is better related to the art of subtraction than the urge of addition. Most of the times, the creative endeavor consists of removing the needless to reinforce the essential, or as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, once said “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

If true, we must move towards a more erasable creative process, and as digital devices become our main tools for creative expression, we must embrace new subtractive, mistake embracing paradigms. Hi Backspace and CMD+Z, we come in peace!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

[2] Pencil by Max Vera, Illustrator @ 23 Design